April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Kakao Bank, Korea’s second internet-only bank, drew more than 300,000 new accounts on the first day of operations July 27.

The bank, run by Korea’s leading messaging app KakaoTalk operator Kakao Corp., said there were 652,000 downloads and 300,500 new accounts as of 8 a.m. on July 28. Kakao Bank also attracted 74 billion won ($66 million) in deposits while extending 50 billion won in loans.

The figures compare with K bank, Korea’s first internet-only bank launched on April 3, and other local commercial banks offering similar online banking services. For K bank, it took three days to attract 100,000 accounts, 73 billion won worth of deposits and 41 billion won of loans. 

However, some of the loan services of Kakao Bank were temporarily unavailable due to server overloads at local credit rating agencies. Kakao said it would seek technical support to address glitches.

Kakao Bank has a paid-in capitalization of 300 billion won. Korea Investment Holdings and Kakao hold a 58 percent and 10 percent stake, respectively. Others stakeholders are Kookmin Bank, eBay and China’s Tencent Holdings. The investor consortium for K bank is formed by KT Corp., Woori Bank and 19 other companies.

Bolstered by the successful launch of Kakao Bank, Kakao’s share price closed up 1.37 percent to 111,000 won on July 28 while the benchmark KOSPI fell 1.73 percent to close at 2,400.99 points on profit-taking by foreign investors.

In 2016, Korean banks opened 155,000 online-only accounts. Their main points of attraction are lower interest on loans and commission discounts for withdrawal and remittance.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)